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Friday, 29 June 2012

OK. The quantity of rain that falleth on other parts of the country do chastise my selfish brain for complaining about a superabundance of snails. I do admit I am not warding off three feet of water from my threshold. Age breeds a very irritating kind of tunnel-vision for which I do apologise.

However... bees are in trouble....

and whilst we are about it... 38Degrees are warning that the powers that be are after flogging off the forests again. If you are not happy about this... you can sign their petition here. And yes I know that 38 Degree supporters are now the object of ridicule for those who don't like their opposition to plans. But it's all we can do sometimes... And Boy! do the whatsits like to come back for another try. Incinerators, hospital closures, environmental issues.... you think you've won your point and they sneak back again when they think it's gone quiet. Keep shouting. Keep making your views known. Keep an eye on the whatsits. All you can do.

Thursday, 28 June 2012

OK. The rain is good for crops... after all that drought early in the year, but I swear that I am growing mould. Some of you may say I always is rather mouldy but...

I have had to start using a kind of slug poison to protect my vegetables, having tried every barrier method known to man and doll... to no avail. The pellets are supposed to be safe for other animals and birds, being slug specific, and it was doing some good protection. (Not for the slugs and snails of course.) But now with all this wet... When it do not rain it be mist. And I could cackle and poison to my heart's content... but I do live on the side of a damp, grassy, granity hill... so the supply of snails be endless. I plant a new squash plant the day before yesterday... put some pellets around it, clear away any lurking molluscs I can find. Next day the plant be eaten. So's my dahlias....

But apart from all of that... I am tired of the dark and gloom. I shall turn green with mildew to match the walls.

Catching up with the lady what grew the squash plants and who runs an organic market garden business selling vegetables and plants.... she do say it be awful year... some of her seed sowings refusing to germinate and others rotting off once they have germinated. Plants bolting during the hot dry spring (what should be "now" not "then") was a cause for grief with another grower.

What hurts the market lady most be another matter. When she started years ago the polytunnels be alive with the buzzing of bees. Now there be hardly any. The tunnels be silent.

I know I be just going on about taking up the art of poison myself.... but the UK still seems to be dragging its heels over banning neonicotinoid insecticides (already banned in France) which some scientists say causes neural damage to the bees, effecting their short term memory so they no longer know "what they came here for" and more importantly... can't find their way home to the hive. You may say..."So what?" But no bees, no crops. There's this little thing called pollination...

Like I say.... wish it would stop raining for a bit.... feeling gloomy.

Monday, 18 June 2012

"HUHum..humm..humm.humm...." sing we."Something French?.... Something Latino?""Could it be Carlos Gardel?" say I, "That record what M brought back from Buenos Aires?""I dunno." say Old Man" Well put it on and we can find out." says me.

So, a morning of searching high and low do ensue with me getting increasingly grumpy at The Old Man's "intuitive" record filing system. It's my precious record.... brought all the way back from Argentina by friend who be performing at that time in theatre thing in Buenos Aires. Memories of a time when friends flew all over the place and I do not live the life of a pensioner in West Cornwall. I be getting very, very upset when The Old Man finally finds the Carlos Gardel album. We do put it on and I do hum along happily.

We have both of course forgot whatever tune it be that we be humming at breakfast time.

Sunday, 17 June 2012

Rain and wind has stopped... for now. In fact the sun do shineth.
I be out in the garden cutting back the tropical jungle that is grass, "weeds" and so forth.

I hear the "si-seeing" that means baby-blue tits have fledged and parent tits are leading them around feeding them. Shaking of wings and frantic high-pitched "si-seeing".
"Aaah!" goes I looking on fondly.

But all baby birds want feeding from their parents. I am disturbed in my weeding by raucous screaming and gargling sounds. Sure enough, as I look up I see a rooklet on the telephone wire... flapping its wings and screeching at it's cool and indifferent parent. Such a ruckus that a young magpie (looks like an adult but shorter tail) hops into a nearby tree to see what on earth is goin' on. Well, Baby Magpie can talk.... nearly... I been hearing it and its parents' rough and gruff exchanges for quite a few days now... usually from opposing ends of the garden while Baby plays disobedient youngster... "No I don't want to come home... I's up here on the chimney and I like it."

My point is.... screaming flapping baby rooks be just the same as quivering sparrow chicks and blue tits. But the cute factor is perhaps missing. Whatever... all babies need food.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

"Last night I dreamed I was in Manderley...."
What? No.
But I do wake up with a dream...
that I be in a cottage somewhere in Cornwall... small rooms... and a dinner party with Edita Grubarovaas guest. She be smothered in glittering diamond necklaces and stuff but do in fact look like Lilian Gish. I have to go and fetch a doctor for her. This be a doctor who is somewhat disgraced and be regarded as a quack. When I look in again he have wired up "Grubarova/Gish" to some electrode type thingy and The Glittering One is exclaiming that she can move her fingertips again....

What can I say?
When it comes to a dream interpretation... clearly my Inner Diva be being treated by my Inner Quack.
Still, at least they are both being kept occupied for now.
Happy Dreams, my dears.

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Mmmm. I do indeed go to St Ives yesterday. And glad to catch that exhibition and the exhibitions accompanying it at Millennium Gallery in Street-an-Pol. Even more delightful to silly old me... is to brave it into Dragon's Hoardin the same street, a tiny shop crammed with tiny things... not least lead soldiers, figures, vehicles and so on. I just can't resist acquiring these... two Land Girls and a Nurse.
Whaddya think?

And of course it must be in the air... cos today the Danny Boyle Olympic Opening Ceremony plans have been unveiled. A vision of rural Britain "...the green and pleasant land. It is something that still exists, and something that cries out to all of us like a childhood memory...." How lovely.

Friday, 8 June 2012

Alors! Bonjour mes amis et les amoureux de le crime telly....
erm... in the UK. Our BBC4 viewing on Saturday nights is off to a new destination. For now we say "Adjö" to Scandi-crime and rush toot vite to Paris. Cos BBC4 is giving us a repeat of Series 2 of crime thriller "Spiral" in its usual stamina-testing (aka junkie's delight of) two hour stints, 9pm-11pm.

This does not please The Old Man who has become a sneaky fan of Scandi-thrillers but do not like the Gallic "Spiral".

"Too violent", he do say.
I do say, "Huh?"

I mean he can cope with corpses sawn in half and whatnot but not the French equivalent? Strange.
Perhaps... it be that he can cope with the Scandi Cool but not with the Gallic gesturing and shouting? Whatever.
If you have not seen this worldly French series before... filled with all too human cops, corruption on a wide scale, thrills, violence, gangs and the streets of Paris..... Give it a go.
I 'spect I'll have to ask politely for it to be recorded.... Yes I know I seen it before... but a girl can't help her addictions.

Thursday, 7 June 2012

When I be a sprout of a teenage schoolgirl... back there in the 1960s... I did buy myself a copy of Ray Bradbury's "The Day it Rained Forever", a Penguin collection of short stories.
Where would my darker imagination be without Bradbury? My psyche rattled for years with the aftermath of "Something Wicked This way Comes". Midwest America would never be the same.
I think he be such an important influence we never knew it. Bradbury wrote "Fantasy" before it became a byword for dragons, wizards, medievalism and works that stretch into at least eight titles. His imagination be prodigious.

Never mind reading his political opinions... George Dubbya be such a good thing... yada-yada.... It will only disappoint. Well me anyway. Why do so many American sci-fi writers turn out to be such raving right-wingers?

Sunday, 3 June 2012

OK. For all you out there celebratin' the Diamond Jubilee... I wish you a jolly good time.
We'se not the Jubilee celebratin' type. We be elder folks and have seen some Jubilees before. But I have made a jelly with strawberries in it....

And we are taking alternative time-out from the celebrations....
with a boxed set of Lynch's "Twin Peaks".
Yes we are that old, and we be indeed "Peakies".